Once when Savardan accused Cousin of forgery of a document which placed him in control of the colony, Cousin threatened to place Savardan in prison, whereupon Savardan immediately withdrew into the house and challenged Cousin to enter, at the same time reminding him of the American law which gave a man the right to protect his own home. After considerable trouble the two men were quieted and the incident passed without any serious results.
Several times, near riots occurred when the men of the colony met to discuss various complaints, those concerning wages especially. Sometimes these disturbances would be ended by the appointment of a committee to consider the matter, after which very little was done—in fact, nothing could be done, as the company had no resources with which to pay nor to make good losses which had occurred. These continual bickerings would have destroyed the colony had nothing else entered the situation to hasten the end. Finally, no socialistic experiment could have been a success under frontier conditions in Texas. The doctrine of Utopian Socialism is a system which deals with industrial conditions and could hardly be applicable to the agrarian frontier. In addition, the capitalistic system had greater rewards to offer individual efforts than did the Utopian social dream.
Thus, a fantastic plan of a French socialist colony came to an end, wrecked upon the individualistic tendencies and weaknesses of its membership. Texas has been made richer culturally by the attempts of these dreamers to better conditions and transform the society in which they lived, even though no economic gain came to these individuals.
APPENDIX
A. Partial List of Settlers
This list has been compiled from all the bibliographical data used in this research, including the census report of 1850 and 1860. There are doubtless duplications since no effort has been made to check transfer of a son or daughter from a family list to a new family by marriage, etc. American reporters of that time and writers of a later date were not accurate in spelling French names. A careful check of names has been made on tombstones in the Old French Cemetery. Many times names were found such as “Dumirel” with no first name and no further appearance. In this case the name was listed just as it appeared. This list is not complete but it contains more names than any other list known at this time. The symbol (S) has been used where the spelling or listing is different but evidently of the same family. The most helpful list and the most complete is by Eloise Santerre contained in her thesis, Réunion ... with a Biographical Dictionary of the Settlers. She also identifies each settler wherever possible.
Achard, E.
Allen, John
Amyard
Baer, two sisters